Curtis Fuller Leads Rising Stars At Artists Collective

RIFFS - JAZZ NOTES

Curtis Fuller, a legendary trombonist, leads a power-packed band Saturday at 8 p.m. after the NEA Jazz Master is honored by the Artists Collective, 1200 Albany Ave., Hartford.

Rounding out a weekend of top jazz attractions playing in Hartford, the Connecticut Classical Guitar Society launches a new summer series with a performance by guitar great Gene Bertoncini Sunday at 1 p.m. at Sweet Jane's Rock & Roll Eatery, 88 Pratt St.

Fuller, a master of both virtuosic flash and artistic substance, was a prized member of the mass migration of young jazz talent that made its exodus from Detroit to New York City in the 1950s.

After his recording debut in 1955, Fuller became a virtually omnipresent force on the then robustly flourishing jazz scene, recording on such Blue Note albums as John Coltrane's ``Blue Trane.'' Perpetually in demand, he also appeared on numerous sessions on such labels as Prestige, United Artists and Savoy.

A founding member of the Jazztet with Benny Golson and Art Farmer, he was also a member of one of Art Blakey's dream-team front lines that featured Wayne Shorter and Freddie Hubbard. Fuller's many other noteworthy associations included tours with such headliners as the Count Basie Orchestra, the quintet Giant Bones, which he co-led with Kai Winding, and with the Timeless All-Stars.

A noted clinician and cultivator of young talent, he performs at the Collective under the billing of Curtis Fuller/Louis Hayes Rising Star featuring Rene McLean.

Since his late teens, when he began drumming for Yusef Lateef and, later, Horace Silver, Hayes has been a top-ranked percussionist.

McLean, a noted multi-instrumentalist and composer, was, as the son of Jackie McLean, raised in a home immersed in music and frequented by jazz luminaries as a matter of routine.

In his teens, Rene was playing at his famous father's side. Growing up, he not only absorbed his father's philosophy of life and music, but also had the opportunity to study with such other jazz greats as Sonny Rollins and Frank Foster.

A globetrotting, cosmopolitan musician/scholar, the younger McLean is much at home intellectually and culturally wherever he travels, whether from South Africa to Japan.

Besides touring and recording with his father, he has performed and recorded with Abbey Lincoln, Hugh Masekela, Billy Taylor, Horace Silver, Lionel Hampton All Stars, Tito Puente Orchestra, the Ray Charles Orchestra and the Cape Town Symphony Orchestra, among many others.

The Fuller/Hayes' band also features the rising young stars, trumpeter Duane Eubanks, bassist Ivan Taylor and pianist Alvin Baptiste.

Eubanks comes from a musical family, including his well-known brothers, trombonist Robin Eubanks and guitarist Kevin Eubanks (Jay Leno's late night bantering buddy and band leader) and his uncle, pianist Ray Bryant.

Taylor, who began on bass at age 6, was just in high school when he had the chance to play with the Chicago great, Von Freeman. Baptiste, a student at the Juilliard School, got his first major gig with Fuller. Of his young protege, Fuller says: ``I think Alvin (Baptiste) has captured the sound and feeling that Monk and Bud brought to the jazz table.''

The jazz table will be set in the Collective's auditorium as part of its ``Jammin Jazz Getaway'' series. Tickets: $25, in advance general public and $35 at the door; $20 in advance for members of the Collective and Greater Hartford Arts Council, students and seniors. Available at the Collective, Japanalia Eiko, 990 Farmington Ave., West Hartford, Integrity 'n Music, 506 Silas Deane Highway, Wethersfield. Information: 860-527-3205.

Holiday for strings

If you'd like to turn Father's Day into a holiday for strings, the guitar society offers a jazz brunch featuring Bertoncini, renowned for inventiveness and classical concern with clarity, nuance, form and content.

Bertoncini this weekend leads off the society's special four-part summer jazz series at the Pratt Street restaurant with a concert/brunch billed as ``Jazz Up Your Father's Day.''

Next in the series in the downtown eatery, Claudia Acuna, the celebrated Chilean singer/songwriter, performs July 1 at 1 p.m. Vocalist Gretchen Parlato is featured July 8 at 6 p.m. Guitarist Frank Vignola, a versatile picker and master of the virtuosic gypsy jazz style guitar of Django Reinhardt, wraps up the series July 29, also at 6 p.m. A many-sided and much in demand sideman, Vignola has toiled for a dazzling variety of stars ranging from Madonna and Ringo Starr to Woody Allen and Elvin Jones.

Tickets: $25, includes concert plus brunch or dinner; available at the door or at 860-249-7041. Brunch or dinner served a half-hour before showtime. Information: www.ccgs.org.

JVC Big Apple bash

JVC Jazz Festival-New York opens Sunday on Father's Day with the Sonny Fortune Quartet at Harlem's famous Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and runs full-steam ahead with carloads of all-star performers in citywide venues through June 30.